


Soulmates are Overrated

by orphan_account



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 07:14:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9537512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: No one really gave Philip a reason to believe in soulmates, or love for that matter.That was before Lukas Waldenbeck, anyway.





	

The concept of soulmates seemed stupid to Philip. He didn't like the idea that there was only one person in the entire world of over seven billion people that could ever love him with all of their heart, soul, and mind. It didn't seem fair to the people who lived across the world from their designated soulmate, or whose other half died before they would ever truly fall in love with them. And it definitely seemed cruel to the people who just happened to get distracted at the exact moment they were supposed to meet their soulmate, so that little window opportunity to be loved whole-heartedly by the one person who ever could was whisked away before they even knew what happened.

It wasn't fair. The system was flawed, and broken. There was no way everyone could have a soulmate, no way everyone would have their happy little ending. In the seventeen years Philip has lived through, he found that no one could love you enough, or love you without strings attached, without that little clause at the end of the contract. Nobody had enough love in them to love someone else completely and unselfishly, without problem at all. In his experience, it just didn't happen. Philip's own mother, the only person to ever really love him in the first place, couldn't even love him enough to stay sober for more than a couple days. 

Philip never let himself think about that, though. Sometimes his hands would shake with anger and dejected tears would sneak up behind his eyelids because why _couldn't_ she love him enough to get help? Why couldn't she at least love herself enough to stop destroying her body with more drugs? It wasn't fair. Of course, guilt and overwhelming obligation to take care of Anne quietly took hold of everything else and packed it away in a locked box in the back of his mind. Philip needed to take care of his mother. And he always did. Because Philip loved his mother enough to do so.

Philip always took care of Anne. He would bring her to the bed every time she was passed out on the yellow couch after a hit, and he would make sure she ate and bills got paid. Even when it meant that Philip went without food for a couple days, or when it meant that he had to do what he had to do to bring money in when Anne couldn't. He loved his mother. And Anne loved him back, he _knew_ that she did. But unfortunately for Philip, she loved her drugs more.

Sometimes, when Philip was smaller, before everything got really bad and Anne truly lost herself in the drugs, she would pull Philip onto her lap and brush the curls out of his face and explain that one day, Philip would have someone who loved him so much that it hurt. She would often tell him fantastic stories about soulmates and how there's a person out there just for him. And he used to believe her too. He used to close his eyes and imagine what this person would be like, when he would meet them. He used to have so much hope that he could be loved too, that he could be taken care of. He used those few happy thoughts of hope to comfort him when no one else was there to do it themselves. But then Philip grew up, and he began to realize that that's just not how the world works.

Philip never thought that he could be loved. That's what the world taught him, anyway. He learned that lesson with whispered words in his ears, and mean sneers tossed in his direction like an old bone at an even older dog. He was never really good at making friends, and when he was twelve, he was in and out of the foster system like a kid for rent. Nobody really seemed to think he was worth keeping around. _Love is stupid._ Philip would think. _I have my mom, I don't need anyone else._

Or, at least, that's what Philip would tell himself. He didn't allow himself to think that maybe, _maybe,_ someone would one day look at him like he was something other than the dirt under their feet. He couldn't, though. He'd only get hurt, and Philip had more important things to worry about. _He didn't need it._

Pinpointing the exact moment in his life that Philip began to lose faith in love and soulmates would be near impossible. It started slowly, at first. He began to doubt his mother's stories, and then he stopped believing them altogether. He stopped looking for the person who was made for him, who he belonged too, his soulmate. He built up this hard shell, this barrier, and shoved all those silly little stories and feelings behind it.

Honestly, Philip was scared to love anyone. He was sacred to let his walls down, to let another person peek inside and see everything Philip had so desperately locked away. His reasoning was that if no one could really love him back, then why put himself through the pain of unrequited affection?

It became even scarier when Philip realized that he didn't like girls the way the other boys did, the way he was supposed to. He just added that to the list of reasons why he should never let himself fall in love, a reason to build his walls up even higher. He vowed to never let himself get hurt or be vulnerable for anyone else.

Soulmates were stupid, and overrated. There wasn't some mystical being ensuring that every single person in the world would find a match. Not everyone could be loved, and not everyone _could_ love. Not everyone wanted to be loved. Philip always told himself he didn't want to be loved, that he didn't need it. That no one would ever love him anyway, so he might as well stop while he was ahead and not get his hopes up before they could get crushed by someone else's hands. 

Philip didn't need it, he didn't want it; he was unlovable. And that didn't bother him. He didn't need it, he didn't want it. It doesn't hurt.

But it _did_ hurt. It hurt when Anne chose her drugs over him. It stung when the other kids wouldn't want to be around him, or when all his foster homes eventually just threw him away too. It hurt at night when he couldn't sleep, and the loneliness that seemed so much heavier in the dark seeped into his bones and tore at the seams holding his crippled shield together. It hurt like hell when loneliness sunk its teeth in Philip's heart and shook him like a rag doll with the savageness of a starving dog. He could deny it all he wanted, but it still hurt, and Philip still craved the feeling to be wanted, to be cared for, to be _loved._

But no matter how much Philip yearned, no matter how much he cried and pleaded, he was still unlovable and worthless. And no matter how much he shook his head and closed his eyes, it still hurt.

Or, that was until Philip was (once again) relocated to a different foster family so that his mother could get her act together. Tivoli never looked like much. He'd just have to go through it for a couple months before he'd be able to leave. Either when his mom went to rehab and got better for a couple months, or until he aged out. Whichever came first. So Philip didn't really bother trying to settle in Tivoli. It's not like there would be anything there for him, anyway.

See, the thing about soulmates is that they're supposed to make you happier. There is supposed to be this light opening up from the heavens, the sound of trumpets, and this _good_ feeling to wash over your body when you first see your soulmate. It was supposed to be this glorious revelation that solves all of your problems. Everything was supposed to be fixed and nothing bad was supposed to happen when you met your soulmate.

Well maybe the universe forgot to give Philip a memo, because all that happened when he met Lukas Waldenbeck was the initial feeling of _oh no_ and the sound of cracking and shifting cement as his walls left him defenseless and scared. The unwelcome flare of hope sputtering to life underneath the gravel and remnants of the bricks he used to guard himself breathed color into Philip's graying heart.

Boys like Lukas Waldenbeck were the kind of boys that broke down those safeguards, no matter how much you kick and scream. Boys like Lukas only brought pain and sadness and reassurance that the universe wanted to punish you. A boy like Lukas Waldenbeck was _exactly_ the kind of boy Philip would fall for. 

Philip tried repeating the words he drilled into his head so long ago. _I don't need it, I don't want it._ But then Lukas would stare at him with his stupid blue eyes and a stupid lopsided smirk, and suddenly the words died on Philip's lips and he couldn't think straight. 

Lukas was everything Philip wanted, everything he denied needing. When he was around Lukas, all Philip could think about was kissing him, kissing that annoying grin off of his face, and kissing him until he kissed back too. But he couldn't.

He couldn't because Lukas was straight. He had a girlfriend. He didn't like Philip that way. He couldn't kiss him because _Lukas wasn't gay._ But no matter how much Philip told himself this, he was still stuck with this deep ache in his chest. He was so hopelessly and foolishly _gone._

Philip was a fool. He should have known. But when Lukas looked at him like no one else had before, Philip couldn't help but think that maybe, possibly, Lukas liked him back. When Philip caught him sneaking stolen glances at him when he thought no one was looking, or when he let Philip wrap his arms around him just a bit tighter when they rode on his motorbike, it made the hope in Philip's chest giggle and laugh and dance around with the butterflies in his stomach. Philip now knew that that treacherous hope was just laughing at him.

So he tried to kiss Lukas, tossing that mental list Philip went through every time he thought about kissing Lukas right out the window. He only leaned in toward the other boy because he thought Lukas was going to kiss him first; at least that's what it looked like to Philip. But he was wrong, apparently. Being alone in the cabin with Lukas made Philip forget his promises he made to himself when he built up his walls in the first place.

God, he was such an _idiot._ How could he possibly think that a boy like Lukas would want a boy like Philip: city-trash with a druggie for a mother. Philip hated himself for it, he hated when he leaned forward. He hated his hope and his hurt when Lukas rejected him. His heart dropped and somehow, it hurt more than when Lukas pushed him away with an angry, _what the hell are you doing?_

Philip swallowed the bitter lump in his throat and ignored the horrible, hollow feeling in his stomach. He squeezed his eyes shut and cursed himself. He let himself be vulnerable, and he got hurt. He touched the hot stove, despite the numerous warnings plastered on every wall in Philip's head, and he got burned. He could never look at Lukas again. 

Philip was getting up to leave when Lukas clutched his leather jacket and reeled him back in like the naïve fish he was.

Lukas was probably going to yell at him, punch him, and kick him out. Philip wouldn't blame him, he deserved it. But when Lukas nervously entwined his arm around Philip's and up to his face, and turned his head to look into his eyes, Philip's heart hammered away in his ribcage like a defected drum. 

Philip never imagined Lukas would kiss him first. He never thought that Lukas would _want_ to. But he did. He kissed Philip with as much longing and desperation as Philip felt. He clung to him like a lifeline, which Philip was grateful for because if not, he would have fallen flat on the floor.

But of course, with every good action in nature, there is an equal and opposite _bad_ reaction. Lukas kissed Philip, and Philip kissed back. One thing led to another, and they witness a triple homicide murder in Bo's cabin and the shooter wants them dead.

If he could, Philip would think he would hear the universe laughing at him. When something seems too good to be true, it usually is. And whenever Philip found some sort of good in his life, whenever he began to care about someone, it got messed up. They got messed up. His love left nothing but devastation and havoc in its wake. His touch was a poisonous curse, _he_ was a plague. 

But no matter how much destruction he caused, no matter how much Lukas frantically tried to push him away, Philip always came back for more. He finally began to understand his mother and her addiction. 

Lukas was Philip's addiction. His lips were laced with drugs and his touch kept him bound. Philip hated what Lukas had done to him. He hated that Lukas left fiery trails of desire wherever his fingertips carved into Philip's body. He hated it, but he couldn't quit it. No matter how much it hurt him, Philip would always need more. 

He would do anything for Lukas, even if it meant that he would destroy himself in the process. And it did, eventually. Philip shattered into a million pieces that Lukas barely swept under the rug. He left the mess for Philip to clean up with a bottle of tequila and a phone call to social services. That was always going to be the way it ended. Philip never really expected he would get a happy ending, and this only confirmed it. The universe dangled the one thing Philip wanted more in front of his face and then kicked him in the knees and ran away. 

But things always did get bad before they got worse. Lukas brought the gun to Helen and confessed that he was at the cabin and witnessed the murders; he even broke up with Rose, all for Philip. Lukas was trying, he was trying to glue the pieces back together and be there for Philip the way he should have been. And Philip almost came close to saying that he was happy, for once, if he didn't know any better.

Philip thought it was over. He thought he finally woke up from this vicious nightmare. But he was wrong, he always was. When Helen told him his mother was dead, that she was getting better but it didn't matter because she was murdered by a madman with a needle, Philip felt the overwhelming feeling of terror and loneliness clutch its bony claws around him like a toxic friend. He was destroyed, he was broken, he was gone.

But this time, Philip wasn't alone. Lukas gently pried the cold hands squeezing his body away, and replaced them with his warm, familiar, heartbeat. Lukas was there, Lukas cared, and he loved Philip like no one else had before.

Philip always thought that when you were born, you were assigned a soulmate and that was the only one you get, take it or leave it. He thought that love would come easy, it would be easy. He thought that when you were in love, you stayed in love. Soulmates don't fall out of love because it just didn't happen, and if you did, you weren't really soulmates. It was easy, and it was perfect. 

But it doesn't work like that. You're not made for anyone, you are not anybody's other half. Your soulmate isn't going to fix all of your problems and make all of the bad in the world go away. Love is more than just the powerful surge of emotion you get in your stomach. Love is working hard to make things work when everything seems broken. It's compromising, and being there for your partner when they needed you. It was more than three words everyone wanted to hear; it was more than the "L" word. 

It was hard, hell, at times it almost seemed impossible. But Philip and Lukas worked through it, together. They were partners, they were in this together. They loved each other, even when things got hard. Philip wouldn't say he had everything figured out, and he wouldn't say that he was fixed and everything was okay now that he has Lukas, but that's okay. He was still sacred, and he had no idea what would happen in the future, but he knows that he could shape it and that he knows that he has a choice. 

And Philip's choice is Lukas. Not because Lukas is his addiction, or because he gives him the love and care he's always wanted, but because he loves Lukas. He loves him, and he knows Lukas will choose him too.


End file.
